ABSTRACT
A considerable time ago, Stuart Hall, in an influential text, delineated what he called ‘two paradigms’ for cultural studies (Hall 1981). One was culturalism, which he identified with the work of Hoggart, Williams and Thompson; the other, structuralism, came to be encapsulated in the work of Althusser, with later additions from Gramsci. One principal characteristic of the culturalist paradigm was that:
The experiential pull in this paradigm, and the emphasis on the creative and on historical agency, constitute the two key elements in the humanism of the position outlined. Each, consequently accords ‘experience’ an authenticating position in any cultural analysis. It is, ultimately, where and how people experience their conditions of life, define them and respond to them, which, for Thompson defines why every mode of production is also a culture, and every struggle between classes is always also a struggle between cultural modalities; and which, for Williams, is what a ‘cultural analysis’, in the final instance should deliver.
